Help a new player decide which ships to get

[Broadsword56]

Can anyone offer me some guidance?
I have my Starter Kit coming next week. It gives me 2 SoLs and 2 frigates.
It's a good entry into the game. But, since SoLs and frigates avoided engaging each other historically, I knew I'd need more ships to get some plausible actions set up.
Collecting more SoLs seems silly for me, because I'd need a lot of ships to make fleet actions. And that type of action seems like it could get unwieldy with SoG's system, unless a large group of players is involved. I'll probably be playing most of the time vs. 1 opponent, or often solo.
I prefer the daring and maneuver of frigates anyway. So, I've decided to focus on frigates and below for my SoG gaming.
And, since frigate actions happened a lot more often than fleet actions in the Napoleonic Wars, I think it offers me a wider range of historical and hypothetical scenarios, too.
So I've also ordered:
Proserpine 1785/Dryade 1783 frigate ship pack
Embuscade 1798/ Le Succes frigate ship pack
So that gives me 4 frigates total.
From my limited reading about the period, a frigate squadron was typically 3 ships (?)
But what would you do in my situation? Would you get another couple of frigates? If so, maybe I can trade my 2 SoLs with someone for more frigates.
Would sloops be involved in actions with frigates? How/why?
Since frigates so often escorted or attacked merchant shipping, I think getting a merchantman would be cool.
I'll be taking a 3D printing class this fall, so I'm going to see if I can scale a 1/1000 merchant ship to make a custom item as my class project. (Has anyone tried making ships this way?)

[Coog]

I like you prefer frigates to SOLs. However I am keeping my 74's. You can gang up on one using a couple of frigates. As far as squadrons go, in practice frigates could be found working together in varying numbers. Sloops sometimes would be involved. Here is a thread that will give you an idea of what kinds of ships could be found in engagements:

http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?1975-Scenario-Ideas-From-quot-On-This-Day-quot

[Diamondback]

Welcome aboard, Gina! I've actually got a spreadsheet with all the stats for Wave 1's I'm about to upload, which might help you.

Focusing on the Wave 1's... The Amazons are more maneuverable than the Concordes, at the cost of about half the survivability. On the two British Concordes, HMS Concorde has a heavier forward broadside while her flip-side HMS Unite is heavier aft; if I were running these two in a close formation I'd have Concorde ahead and Unite tucked in right behind and to one side, so only the weaker half-broadsides are blocked by one another.

French Concordes: Starter set Courageuse costs two points more for no appreciable gain. Otherwise, they're statistically identical except:
-Concorde gains 1 Musketry over her sisters in Boxes 1 and 6, but loses 1 chit of Aft Broadside in Box 4.
-Courageuse and Unite, the two Starter cards, have a 1-chit Fwd Broadside advantage in Box 4.
-Unite has a 1-chit Fwd Broadside advantage in Box 4, a 1-chit Aft Broadside edge in Box 5.
-In Box 6, Inconstante, Courageuse and Unite throw 1 extra Full Broadside chit compared to the other three.

French Amazons: Succes gains 1 Full Broadside draw over Embuscade in Boxes 1 and 6, and has a 1-chit Aft Broadside edge in Box 4. Unless you already have Succes on the table, are playing a scenario that calls for Embuscade specifically or NEED the four points for crew upgrades, leave Embuscade in port and set Succes up as the card in this mini's base.

British Amazons: HMS Meleager (Starter, Side B) costs a point more than her sisters, which gets you an extra Aft Broadside in Box 1. Other than that, they're all identical in points and stats except that Kickstarter Exclusive side-B HMS Castor has one less point of crew in Box 1. The ONLY reason I would ever take Castor out of port would be if a historical scenario called for her by name or it was a large action and ALL my other British frigates were already at sea.

[Gunner]

Hi Gina, welcome:beer: to the Anchorage.

You might even want to try a little one on one with the sloops. Kings ship vs French privateer etc.

[Andy Blozinski]

I prefer frigate combat as well.
I'm an absolute fanboy of the wave 2 heavy frigates. The burden 4 makes a big difference on survivability. Note that the maximum hull damage in the A chits is 4. For burden 2 and 3 frigates, it's not unusual for a single hit to take out a hull box. Burden 4 means it is much more likely to take two hits to remove a hull box.

[Diamondback]

You might even want to try a little one on one with the sloops. Kings ship vs French privateer etc.
*sniffs disdainfully* Or American warship vs. King George's minions... :p If you like the Swans, as I recall Thorn or USS Atalanta has a slight gunnery advantage over the others. (Around the time of the Revolution most Swans were fitted for an extra pair of cannon, while Swan and Fairy are statted for as-built in the Seven Years' War.

I'll chime in with more on the Medium Frigates once I have their game stats added to my spreadsheet, or wade through Fred's.

[Gunner]

I'll keep my eyes open for your new spreadsheet.:drinks:

[7eat51]

I would keep the SoLs. They will enable more varied scenarios, will be used if you play in any of the upcoming solo campaigns, and if they ever are sold out, will become expensive to replace. Like others, I am more oriented toward frigates, but I find the SoLs to be growing on me.

I echo Andy's comment on the Wave 2 frigates; the extra burden is quite nice.

[Naharaht]

You may not have heard but Ares are bringing out a model of the U.S.S. Constitution this Autumn (?).

If you can successfully produce a 1/1000 scale merchantman using 3D printing, you may find that a good many players will want to buy some.